Articles From Inside Us

From Inside Us: Experiencing the Film Actor in ’s Caché

Binoche stresses: ‘I was a little bit paranoid, By Joerg Sternagel because Haneke told me absolutely nothing. I figured that he wasn’t especially interested in Keywords: Caché, Michael my character, and I was doubtful and hesitant. After a month of this, I finally asked him why Haneke, Daniel Auteuil, he hadn’t said anything to me. The question , film acting, surprised him. After that, for the last two weeks spectatorship, phenomenology, of the shooting, he wouldn’t leave me alone. I Maurice Merleau-Ponty almost wished I hadn’t said anything to him! As a director, he is extremely specific, but he gives his actors the freedom they need. His precision reminds me of music: he likes brief pauses, and long breaths.’ Daniel Auteuil continues: ‘I avoid asking the director questions as much as I can. I like working with directors who tell me where

‘I always say that a feature At the press conference presenting Caché at the 2005, Michael Haneke film is twenty-four lies per points out: ‘I always say that a feature film is second…’ twenty-four lies per second; the lies may be told to serve a higher truth, but they aren’t always. I think the way the videotape is treated here to enter, where to exit, how fast I should go. shakes the viewer’s confidence in reality. The That’s as much information as I can manage.’ first sequence you see in Caché is ostensibly Maurice Bénichou agrees: ‘I don’t think it would reality, whereas it is actually a stolen image be interesting if we were instructed on what filmed with a camcorder. Of course, I am wary to do. We’d be liable to act out the explana- of the reality we are supposedly seeing in the tion instead of interpret the scene. As Daniel media’. 1 At this conference, Haneke is sup- said, we make our entrances and exits, speak ported by his leading actors Juliette Binoche, softly or loudly, move quickly or slowly. When Daniel Auteuil and Maurice Bénichou. Juliette a director has an important story to tell, those

2 | film international issue 39 Articles From Inside Us are the only clues he gives you. In the end, the performance elements having a basis in inten- screenplay, which is their written instruction, tion and (sometimes serendipitous) chance, is what is interpreted by the actor's body.’ it is the actor’s voice that carries the paralin- guistic features that create nuances of mean- Acting and ing in their intonations, inflections, rhythms, tone, and volume. Similarly, it is the bodies spectatorship in film of actors that provide (at least the basis for) Each attempt to analyze acting in film raises the facial expressions, gestures, postures, a set of questions that are both essential to and various gaits film audiences encoun- academic discussion and research in stud- ter. (Baron, Carson and Tomasulo 2004: 12) ies of the moving image, and that are far from being answered easily: ‘How can act- The core aspect of the interrelation between ing in film be defined?’, ‘What constitutes the performance of an actor as staged and screen performance, acting on and for the set in scene for the screen, and the event of screen?’, ‘What is the signification of the watching the performance as experienced by film actor?’ (Wojcik 2004: 8-11) and ‘How is the viewer, have to be considered when ana- the film actor on the screen experienced lyzing contemporary screen performances and by the spectator in front of the screen?’ their effects. In front of the screen, the viewer Questions like these go with Paul McDon- is confronted with the image of a dynamic ald’s challenging and significant claim for the film creation reaching him through the repre- acknowledgement of the actor’s importance sentation of the moving bodies of the actors, in the analysis of film: ‘Analyzing film acting or, as James Naremore points out in his pio- will only become a worthwhile and necessary neer study Acting in the Cinema from 1988: exercise if the signification of the actor can be seen to influence the meaning of film in some Clearly films depend on a form of com- way. In other words, acting must be seen to munication whereby meanings are acted count for something’ (McDonald 2004: 26). In out; the experience of watching them this context, aiming at an understanding of the involves not only a pleasure in storytell- significance of the actor and the significance ing but also a delight in bodies and expres- of film, every aspect in film and every means sive movement, an enjoyment of familiar of film except the actor should not be stressed performing skills, and an interest in play- exclusively - the emphasis should not be solely ers as real persons. (Naremore 1988: 2) on, among others, the screenplay, the camera- work, the lighting, the mise-en-scène, the edit- Where meanings are ‘acted out’ and ‘organic ing, the makeup and the costume. The starting unities of acted images’ are created in the point for an understanding of the significance process of film-making, within an understand- of the actor and film should rather be to shift ing of ‘the job of acting to sustain the illusion towards the analysis of the actor, his voice, of the unified self’, where performances are body and movement, the significance of them, set, the enjoyment of the spectator watching according to McDonald, ‘when the actions and these performances on the screen, the appeal gestures of the performer impart significant in the final cut, in fact, does not exclusively meanings about the relationship of the charac- lie in the pleasure of following the plot, but in ter to the narrative circumstances’ (McDonald watching the actors themselves and their per- 2004: 32). Moving forward with the attempt to formances (Naremore 1988: 5). As Naremore understand acting and spectatorship in film, does in his work, it is useful to reconsider the it is also helpful to adjust to the suggestion writings of Russian theorist and filmmaker of Cynthia Baron, Diane Carson and Frank P. Pudovkin who convincingly identifies the film Tomasulo, stressing the significant features actor, and also the film type, to play a part on of film acting and, as a result of this, shift- the film: ‘one must possess a sum of real quali- ing towards the signification of the actor: ties, externally clearly expressed, in order to attain a given effect on the spectator’ (Pudovkin Regardless of who originates or selects a par- 1948: 107). Watching the actors themselves ticular performance choice, and in spite of and their performances attain effects on the

www.filmint.nu | 3 Articles From Inside Us spectator, as they are outwardly expressed. day-dreams’ (Wolfenstein and Leites 1950: 12). Adding to Pudovkin, for understanding act- While such a psychoanalytically motivated ing in film and its effects, it is not sufficient approach marks one approach to analyze film to analyze the actor and his role as a star, to and spectatorship, and this certainly represents sum up certain mannerisms the spectator is the general concern of the authors, the notion used to watching, or to look at the use of the of ‘they did it, we only watched’ becomes an actor’s qualities by the director. On the con- interesting, if contradicted, observation of the trary, scrutinizing the form of communication, relationship between ‘performers and onlook- the experience of watching, as Naremore sug- ers’ when heading towards a phenomeno- gests, serves as a means for analyzing acting logical description and understanding of the in film. Part of the enjoyment of film is cer- signification of the film actor. Certainly, the tainly based on following ‘familiar performing film actor, the ‘performer’, is ‘incapable of see- skills’ of the film actors, whereas the interest is definitely intended towards the film actors as ‘real persons’ (Pudovkin 1948: 108, Naremore ‘By thinking through the 1988: 2-4). Within the assumed communication actor, the spectator regards process, also initiated by familiarity and inter- est, where meanings are ‘acted out’, the given him as an agent, whereas by effect is that of an affect thoroughly elicited only thinking about him, the by the experience with elements of human material, both by the actor and the specta- spectator reduces him to a tor. The spectator watches the film, he feels mere object.’ and comprehends it, and responds to it with all his senses. He communicates with the film ing’ the spectator, the ‘onlooker’. At the same actor who elicits sensory responses from him: time, the spectator, in the cinema, appears to the actor significantly guides him through the be ‘insured against reaction or reproof’ from film and simultaneously enables him to think those he watches. But, let alone his possible through the actor's body as well as through his wish to ‘see the actors as they really are’ and to own body. In the process of communication, become interested in the life of stars, he finds the film actor develops and decisively turns himself related to and affected by the film actor. out to be a well-known companion for him. He actively responds to the film actor, does not passively ‘become invisible’ and energetically The signification of acts within a visual, auditory and tactile field. Here, the contrast to the argument of Wolfen- the film actor stein and Leites can be emphasized by claim- ing that there is not less, but more than meets Consider a quote from the chapter ‘Performers the eye, while watching and experiencing film and Onlookers’ in the renowned book Movies: and the film actor (Wolfenstein and Leites A Psychological Study written by Martha Wolfen- 1950: 246-62). 2 Their approach can be related stein and Nathan Leites in 1950: ‘It is a func- to, while analyzing film acting and spectator- tion of drama generally to give the audience a ship, their use of psychoanalytic hypotheses, feeling of release and exoneration in relation to as done, for example, by Norman H. Holland: the acts of violence and forbidden love which they see the characters in the drama perform. The actors, in short, can’t fight back, and that The audience can feel: they did it, we only is one way the film seems a ‘passive’ medium. watched.’ (Wolfenstein and Leites 1950: 245) The other side of the coin is that we can’t Wolfenstein and Leites ground their assump- provoke the actor [...] We are powerless, as we tion of the feeling of ‘release and exoneration’ were when we were children, to change the by the cinema audience on ready-made and doings of the ‘big people’. Now, though, we are shared day-dreams which ‘occupy a larger place immune; the giants on the screen cannot affect in the conscious experience of most individuals us, either. Our regression is safe, secure, and than their more fugitive, private, home-made highly pleasurable. (Holland 1963: 24-27) 3

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tator additionally makes meaning out of bodily Even if the actors certainly cannot ‘fight sense and affectively reconsiders his own bodily back’ to us, it is argued that these ‘giants on being. The spectator is deeply informed by, in the screen’ do affect the spectator, us: that Sobchack’s words, ‘the full history and car- our ‘regression’ changes to our progression, nal knowledge of our acculturated sensorium’ that appears to be challenging and is, indeed, (Sobchack 2004b: 63). Consciously dealing with ‘highly pleasurable’. Acknowledging a progres- this acknowledgement of bodily interaction sion rather than a regression in the process of between actor and spectator, film performances actively watching actors on screen, the analy- can be closely analyzed. In the overall context, sis initially turns towards the body, both of the the forms of communication, and its different film actor and the spectator, and subsequently visualizations and realizations, define acting understands embodied experiences by point- in film and constitute acting for the screen. ing out their resonance. While claiming that there is more than meets the eye, the analysis Knowledge and of how to make sense of the film actor corre- spondingly focuses on the body, the corporeal- experience, involvement ity of actor and spectator or, as Vivian Sobchack and participation puts it (having chosen film actor Jim Carrey to understand and describe forms of ‘being on Watching films, the spectator consciously and the screen’) the ‘corporeal intelligence’ and subconsciously knows of specific effects the ‘corporeal comprehension on both sides of the motion picture as a whole, and moving images screen’: ‘Here, then, I am particularly interested in particular, provide for him, due to the specific in quite literally thinking through Jim Carrey’s stylistic organization of each film. Identifying body – that is, trying to match this extraordi- this overall knowledge and experience, another nary performer’s complex and critical “corpo- particular knowledge and experience can be real intelligence” with some form of analysis assumed; the spectator is moved and more and description adequate not only to it but often than not, he knows why he is moved – the also to our own “corporeal comprehension” film actor teaches him to be moved. He watches of it as his audience’ (Sobchack 2004a: 277). and becomes involved through his own bodily In the general experience of film, which is knowledge and becomes part of an energetic permanently accompanied by the perception of experience; actor and spectator meet in a close the own lived-body, with the own whole inten- interrelation, the performance of an actor cor- tional being, the spectator faces an immediate relates with the event of watching the perfor- experience of the image developing more and mance as experienced by the spectator. The more corporally. When drawn into the scene, spectator faces the image of a dynamic film cre- while watching and experiencing, his/her ation reaching him through the representation body grasps vibrations resonating as energetic of the moving body of the actor. Such a process impulses from the screen. As the intentional of making sense through the film actor closely subject, he can see as well as be seen, and can operates with the knowledge and acknowledge- touch as well as be touched. The analysis of ment of perception on both sides of the screen. these immediate experiences created by images As a result of this, going in the direction of the of the other’s body (the film actor’s) invites close analysis of acting and spectatorship in film, as focus on both on the perception of the film an analysis of performances, defines perfor- actor’s body and the spectator's body; the spec- mances as filmic elements that create meaning tator goes, sees, feels, and senses beyond the and sensual, as well as physiological, effects. In vision of the actor in an experience of proxim- making overall sense of the experience of film ity. By thinking through the actor, the specta- and the actor, of bodily activity and of per- tor regards him as an agent, whereas by only ception, in linking image, mind and body, the thinking about him, the spectator reduces him analysis is supported by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. to a mere object. He recognizes that the film Re-reading the script of his 1945 lecture ‘The actor’s, or rather the film agent’s, body guides Film and the New Psychology’ enlightens about thought as well as his own body does: while the experience of film: ‘[Movies] directly present making sense through the film actor, the spec- to us that special way of being in the world, of

www.filmint.nu | 5 Articles From Inside Us

dealing with things and other people, which we can see in the sign language of gesture and gaze Caché and which clearly defines each person we know’ (Merleau-Ponty 1964: 58). Film is existentially At the beginning of the reconsideration of the embodied perception. Its experience resembles film Caché in particular, and of the cinema of a system of communication, a system that, as Michael Haneke in general, it helps to pres- Sobchack remarks, ‘entails the visible, audible, ent a quotation from this director, taken from kinetic aspects of sensible experience to make his contribution to ‘Film als Katharsis’ (‘film as sense visibly, audibly, and haptically’ (Sobchack catharsis’) a book on Austrian film of the 1980s: 1992: 9). The close analysis of the corporeal- ity of the actor’s body considers the connec- My films are intended as polemical state- tion between actor and spectator in a system ments against the American 'barrel down' of energy transference seeking to optimize cinema and its disempowerment of the spec- the effect of a direct, immediate experience: tator. They are an appeal for a cinema of the spectator watches and becomes involved. insistent questions instead of false (because His ‘body is wherever there is something to be too quick) answers, for clarifying distance done’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 291), where action in place of violating closeness, for provo- and perception point to ‘a perceptual ground; cation and dialogue instead of consump- a basis of my life, a general setting in which tion and consensus. (Haneke 1992: 89) 5 my body can co-exist with the world’ (Merleau- Ponty 2002: 292). This makes the body an active One example of the ‘cinema of insistent part of experience with film and its perception questions’, of challenging uneasiness and and expression of time, space and subjectiv- unknown codes, of ‘twenty-four lies per ity, its perception of the visual and the visible. second’, is the film Caché, starring Juliette This involvement and participation allows us to Binoche and Daniel Auteuil as the couple Anne think of performance, by drawing upon Les- and Georges Laurent, threatened by the past, ley Stern and George Kouvaros, ‘as entailing a the past of Georges. Receiving anonymous notion of reception and thus incorporating [us] videotapes, which are wrapped up in drawings the audience’ (Stern and Kouvaros 1999: 25-26). resembling horrifying children’s illustrations, There is a circulation of bodily affect between and which capture their daily lives, the couple actor and spectator: ‘energy is deployed and is led to Georges’ long-repressed act of child- transmitted by and through the body’ - a pro- hood cruelty – a cruelty directed toward an cess that Stern and Kouvaros identify as a Algerian boy called Majid (played by Malik Nait ‘loopy system’ of relation and affect, circulat- Djoudi, and, as an adult, by Maurice Bénichou) ing in an erratic manner among actor, film, and who was adopted by George’s parents and who spectator without ‘privileging psychological or Georges, in acts of jealousy, successively drove mimetic principles’ (Stern and Kouvaros 1999: into corners until he, in return, was repudiated 26). 4 The performance of the actor correlates by them. In Caché, filmmaker Haneke is inter- with the event of watching the performances as ested in miniaturizing the debate on a massacre experienced by the spectator. The performance taking place in Paris in 1961 when French police mode elicits sensory responses from the specta- killed hundreds of Algerian immigrants who tor, whose analysis marks the phenomenologi- were protesting against a curfew. The director cal approach to study screen performance and offers a film, as he claims, ‘on guilt’, specifically its elements. These elements, which are integral about an adult who has to deal with ‘some- to film, correspond to what Cynthia Baron thing’ he did in his childhood (Haneke 2005). stresses at the beginning of an essay on human Within this context and these contents, movement in motion pictures, while working watching Caché, the spectator is constantly with the film Adaptation (Spike Jonze: 2002): challenged to question his own experience in a ‘close study of essentially any screen perfor- process of uncertainty where hidden images, mance elements are as integral to a film as its such as the image in figure one, demand his framing and editing selections’ (Baron 2006: 48). active participation. At this point, the frequent

6 | film international issue 39 Below left to right Figure 1: EXT. Cut to one of the first video Articles From Inside Us images, Figure 2: INT. The house of the Laurent family

transitions from video to film images are not move and express themselves, and enable the exclusively stressed, as done by a lot of writers bodily responsive and intentional as well as in many reviews of the film. Moreover, through- active spectators to follow and to understand out the work, it is noteworthy that the specta- what he sees and feels. Set at the table in the tor faces and simultaneously experiences town house in Paris, he joins three couples performances of multiple-coded aesthetic having dinner, and experiences, at first, effects that, at first, create deliberate confusion. moments of enjoyment and tension. While By thinking through the performances, in united by the enjoyment of food, red wine, and particular through the ones of Binoche and conversation, as visualized in figure two, the Auteuil, however, the spectator manages to get uncanny sense of the film is made clear by an along with this film. He reads the performances anecdote told by one of the guests of the to know what the characters do and what the Laurent’s. Elaborating on an older woman the characters feel. He directly learns of the narrator once met by chance, the spectator displayed relationship of Anne and George, learns that nothing is what it seems. This which appeals to his senses. He watches and notion is strengthened at the point of the becomes involved. In the selected scene of a story’s resolution: the woman identifies the dinner with friends, though, he becomes narrator as the reincarnation of her passed involved in the daily life of the protagonists away dog. Participating in the situation of that is presented by a very familiar situation of having dinner with friends, the spectator hospitality, a situation of having dinner with identifies this narrative device as a moment of friends. In this situation, the spectator also foreshadowing, and, simultaneously, becomes becomes aware of the uncanny sense and aware of the appeal of it: sensing the familiar philosophy of this film, with that scene func- situation of hospitality also means to sense the tioning as a foreshadowing of the moment of insistency of the unfamiliar situation of the shock later on – the suicide of Majid, a deed the Laurent’s. Such an appeal is directly empha- spectator is not able to foresee, but which is sized in the next shot of the scene, when, all of equivalent to his sense that something beyond a sudden, the doorbell rings. Georges, with an his expectation will happen in the film. Focus- insecure gaze, questions the identity of the late ing on the characters of Georges and Anne visitor, and pretends to be solely surprised in Laurent, it is obvious to the spectator that they front of his wife and guests. Anne, however, are emotionally distant from each other, lack reacts with a sorrowful look on her face, and intimacy and show a sense of nervousness and seems alarmed, while the other couples react insecurity. In terms of the film experience, with instant curiosity about the late interrup- linking the actor’s and the spectator’s body, the tion. Following Georges outside, we learn that practice of description of these actors focuses there is another videotape delivered, which is on them as themselves, on the actors’ bodies, wrapped up in another drawing, resembling even if their emotional distance is also techni- another illustration of childhood cruelty, but, cally reached by framing them individually or again, for Georges and us, it is too late to meet showing them in two-shot sitting opposite each the supplier, at whom Georges desperately other. In minimal manners, the actor’s bodies shouts in the dark. Having hidden the cassette

www.filmint.nu | 7 Below left to right, top to bottom, Figure 3: INT. The challenging gaze of the wife (as displayed by Juliette Binoche), Figure 4: INT. The insecure reaction of the husband (as visualized by Daniel Auteuil), Figure 5: INT. Articles From Inside Us The house of the Laurent family, Figure 6: EXT. Cut to a later video image

in his jacket, hanging on the coat rack of the there is more than meets the eye, and, at the cloakroom, the husband re-enters the dining same time, that there is more than ‘the act of and living room, behaving secretively, and, storytelling that produces a particular relation- immediately faces the challenging gaze of his ship between narrator and listener’ (Macallan wife, depicted in figure three with the reaction and Plain 2007). It also means that there is a of Georges following in figure four. In contrast considerable signification of the film actors, to her, Georges does not want to reveal the whom the spectator encounters with his situation of threat they deal with in front of sensorium. Their bodies, their precise expres- their friends. Anne, for that reason, breaks the sions, gestures, and postures catches the moment of silence between them, while spectator's eyes; their moving bodies attain serving a meal, and decides to let their guests effects on the spectator, and teaches him what take part in the family’s unpleasant state. Her cinema is also about: ‘Cinema is not only about lone decision provokes Georges to react with a telling a story; it’s about creating an affect, an mixture of irony and honesty directed towards event, a moment which lodges itself under the his wife; a reaction that is followed by moments skin of the spectator’ (Rutherford 2003). of silence and the embarrassment of all Scrutinizing the affect, the event, and the participants. As shown in figure five, the group moment of watching Caché, especially the looks down at their dishes and prefer to say dinner scene, the moving and touching effect nothing altogether. Georges’ state of anger and turns out to be an experience with elements of insecurity successively rises and finally culmi- human material, both with the actors and with nates in the presentation of the only just the spectators. The spectator responds to the delivered tape to their guests. The dinner scene whole work with all his senses, because of the consequently closes with the video image of film actors; he communicates with George/ the house of Georges’ parents in the country, as Daniel Auteuil and Anne/ Juliette Binoche as presented in figure six, and leaves the spectator well as their guests, who all elicit sensory behind as empowered. The spectator sensi- responses from him. The actors significantly tively, as well as intentionally, responds to the guide him through the film. In the process of performances, follows the actors and under- watching these actors, he understands them: stands what he sees and feels in every shot. he understands these forms of ‘being on the Watching this particular scene means that screen’ (Sobchack 2004a: 277). He learns that

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Haneke’s work of art in particular, and film in general, are ‘peculiarly suited to make manifest ‘My films are intended the union of mind and body, mind and world, as polemical statements and the expression of one in the other’ (Mer- leau-Ponty 1964: 58). He realizes the process of against the American watching and understanding as one of reso- 'barrel down' cinema and nance and affect, and isolates it from framing, its disempowerment of the editing and narrative explanation. The specta- tor remembers Binoche as Anne and the spectator.’ experience of her challenging and sorrowful gazes, frequently directed at her husband. He tion of Georges, as visualized by Auteuil, gives considers Auteuil as Georges and, for example, rise to the affect of a well-known experience. the notions of his first suppressed anxiety and The analysis of making sense through the the following insecure reaction which leaves film actor introduces an approach that does his wife and friends puzzled. He feels the not acknowledge narrative as the organi- resonance to and the affect of both Binoche’s zational control of film. It maintains com- long breaths and frequent pauses, and Auteuil’s munication and comprehension in the film petrified facial expression and sudden out- experience to originate in the mutual exchange bursts of anger throughout the film. He remem- of the personal intentions of the viewer and bers the other scenes showing the couple in the movements of others, including the actors their daily routine at work, at home, and in and on the screen. Dealing with movement and outside town, occasionally accompanied by the sense of gestures, Merleau-Ponty interest- friends, colleagues and their son Pierrot (Lester ingly grasped the meaning of the body both as Makedonsky). He refers to his own bodily expression and speech. This a quote from his knowledge within the circulation of bodily 1945 Phenomenology of Perception: ‘The gesture affect between these actors and himself, and presents itself to me as a question, bring- imagines himself having dinner with his ing certain perceptible bits of the world to my friends. He imagines facing challenging and notice, and inviting my concurrence in them. sorrowful gazes from his friend, husband or Communication is achieved when my con- wife and understands being first unable to duct identifies this path with its own. There express a certain anxiety. is mutual confirmation between myself and others’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 215). Referring to From inside us a bodily knowledge in the circulation of bodily affect between actor and spectator, the pro- There is only one way to make the film Caché cess of imagining oneself having dinner with mean: it can be made meaningful out of bodily friends, facing challenging and sorrowful gazes sense, rather than out of textual clues. Shift- from a friend, husband or wife, and being first ing towards the analysis of the actors, their unable to express a certain anxiety deepens voices, bodies, and movements, and the sig- an understanding for embodied experiences. nificance of them, represents the basis for Remembering the body, both of the film actor the realization of the process of watching and and the spectator, and understanding embod- understanding film and its acting cast as one ied experiences by pointing out their reso- of resonance and affect. Watching the actors nance, it is possible to learn that the body is themselves and their performances affect and comparable to a work of art, and to gain the resonate with spectator, as they are outwardly experience, as Merleau-Ponty puts it, that it is ‘a expressed. Being in the house of the Lau- nexus of living meanings, not the law for a cer- rent family, and joining them for dinner with tain number of covariant terms’ (Merleau-Ponty friends, provides the spectator with moments 1964:175). From the film actor’s point of view, of enjoyment and tension. Facing the challeng- going on the screen, these ‘living meanings’ ing gaze of Anne, for example, as displayed by are encountered in perception, because, as Paul Binoche, initiates the affect of having felt this Crowther points out in an article on Merleau- before. Noticing the immediate insecure reac- Ponty and perception into art, the artist is ‘a person whose approach to life has been signifi-

www.filmint.nu | 9 Articles From Inside Us cantly defined by a relationship to a medium rhythm just as the meaning of a gesture may such as painting or writing. He has learnt an immediately be read in that gesture: the film affinity between his body and the handling of does not mean anything but itself [...] A movie a specific medium’ (Crowther 1982: 141). This is not thought; it is perceived’ (Merleau-Ponty affinity subsequently leads to enabling the 1964: 58-59). Meaning in film is experienced, and originates in the mutual exchange of the ‘…we always fill the screen personal intentions of the spectator and the with our own experiences. movements of others, including the actors on the screen. The absorption in the film experi- Ultimately, what we see ence is a form of a mutual absorption in the comes from inside us’ world. The spectator makes sense through the realization of the other’s body, the actor’s (Haneke 2005) moving body, his accurate expressions, and controlled gestures. He makes meaning out of bodily sense and affectively reconsiders his artist’s ‘body to continue the creative stylizing own bodily being. Similar to the actors’ bod- process begun in the artist’s perception itself’ ies on stage, his body relates to the bodies of (Crowther 1982:142). From the spectator’s point the actors on the screen, and responds to the of view, returning from screen back to seat, experienced world as well as to the imaginary these ‘living meanings’ are encountered in world. What he experiences with their bodies perception, because the embodied self of the on the screen is what he realizes as a possibil- spectator, as placed in the world, grasps the ity for himself off the screen. His body is drawn way of being in the film, visualized by the film’s into the accurate expressions and controlled cast and speaking to all senses at once. Linking gestures of the actors’ bodies. In this way, he these two points of view on the grounds of a is bodily linked to the actor who becomes his unity of human style, with film making mani- companion in cinema, especially in a ‘cinema fest ‘the union of mind and body, mind and of insistent questions’, and particularly in world, and the expression of one in the other’ films like Caché, Ulysses’ Gaze (Theo Angelo- (Merleau-Ponty 1964: 58), enlightens us about poulos, 1995), Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999), the phenomenological experience of proximity. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003), Batalla En El Cielo In the circulation of bodily affect between actor [Battle In Heaven] (Carlos Reygadas, 2005) and and spectator, the spectator perceives himself, Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006). The actor for example at dinner with friends, and his on the screen is at once regarded as an active understanding, as a result, deepens this percep- and acting agent. The actor in film is not tion, drawing him into the particular scene and reduced to a passive and imaged object. Act- into the work of art in general. He understands ing in film can now be better seen, and even embodied experiences and points to their reso- be felt, to count for something. The specta- nances, even if they are different in every body. tor off the screen is re-empowered and pro- The given effect is that of an affect thor- voked as a human bodily being. The spectator’s oughly elicited by the experience of elements senses are all evoked. He is appealed to and of human material, by both the actors and the challenged by this cinema of insistence and spectator. Gradually intensified, the experi- multiple codes. He too is active and acting. ence appears, in Anne Rutherford’s words, as ‘a Shaken by the confidence in reality through vehicle by which an affective charge is trans- means of hidden images, being in the house lated from film-maker to audience’, from film of the Laurent family, and joining them for actor to audience, while ‘the role of the mate- dinner with friends, provides the specta- rial elements of the film… [functions as] the tor with moments of enjoyment and tension. means to produce this experience’ (Rutherford While making sense through the film actor in 2002: 65). The affective embodied experiences Michael Haneke’s Caché, the spectator real- are limitless and stress the materiality of film, izes that there is even more to the experi- as Merleau-Ponty has directed attention to: ence of film than narrative comprehension ‘The meaning of a film is incorporated into its and interpretation involving the construction

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Haneke, Michael (2005), ‘Memories of of meaning through textual clues. He expe- Murder. Hidden in Plain Sight: Austrian riences their bodies on the screen and real- Director Michael Haneke Evokes the izes this experience with bodily linkage as a Power of Nightmares’, The Village Voice, 13 possibility for him off the screen. He further December 2005, available at: http://www. notices that he is constantly challenged in villagevoice.com/film/0550,ng,70942,20. the process of watching the film and its cast, html. Accessed 17 April 2008. and immediately perceives that there is even more than meets the eye, or, as Haneke elabo- Haneke, Michael (1992), ‘Film als Katha- rates, that ‘we always fill the screen with rsis’, in: Francesco Bono (ed.), Aus- our own experiences. Ultimately, what we tria (in) Felix: Zum österreichischen Film see comes from inside us’ (Haneke 2005). der 80er Jahre, Graz: Blimp, pp. 89. Holland, Norman H. (1963), ‘Puzzling Mov- Contributor details ies: Their Appeal’, The Journal of the Soci- Joerg Sternagel is Visiting Lecturer in Film ety of Cinematologists, Vol. 3, pp. 24-27. and Philosophy in the European Media Macallan, Helen and Andrew Plain (2007), Studies programme at the Institute for Arts ‘Hidden’s Disinherited Children’, Senses of and Media at the University of Potsdam. Cinema, issue no. 42, available at: http:// His research focus is film, philosophy and www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/07/42/ acting in film. He is the author of a book on hidden.html. Accessed 17 April 2008. method acting, Methodische Schauspielkunst und Amerikanisches Kino (Berlin, 2005), based McDonald, Paul (2004), ‘Why Study on his Ph.D. thesis. He is currently work- Film Acting? Some Opening Reflec- ing on his second book, There Is More than tions’, in: Cynthia Baron, Diane Carson Meets the Eye: A Phenomenology of the Film and Frank P. Tomasulo (eds.), More than Actor, a project funded by the Fritz Thys- a Method. Trends and Traditions in Con- sen Foundation in Cologne between 2007 temporary Film Performance, Detroit, MI: and 2008. Joerg Sternagel’s writing has Wayne State University Press, pp. 23-41. appeared in Bestattungskultur, Cinetext – Film Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2002), Phe- and Philosophy, Film Criticism, Literatur in Wis- nomenology of Perception, trans. Colin senschaft und Unterricht, and Mitteilungsheft Smith, New York, NY: Routledge. der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964), ‘The Film and the New Psychology’, in: Mau- References rice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, trans. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Patricia Baron, Cynthia (2006), ‘Performances in Allen Dreyfus, Evanston, IL: Northwest- Adaptation: Analyzing Human Movement in ern University Press, pp. 48-59. Motion Pictures’, Cineaste, XXXI:4, pp. 48-55. Naremore, James (1988), Acting in Baron, Cynthia, Carson, Diane and the Cinema, Los Angeles, CA: Uni- Tomasulo, Frank P. (2004), ‘Introduction: versity of California Press. More Than the Method, More Than One Method’, in: Cynthia Baron, Diane Carson Pudovkin, Vsevolod Ilarionovič (1948), and Frank P. Tomasulo (eds.), More than Film Technique and Film Acting: The Cin- a Method. Trends and Traditions in Con- ema Writings of V.I. Pudovkin, trans. temporary Film Performance, Detroit, MI: Ivor Montagu, New York: Lear. Wayne State University Press, pp. 1-19. Rutherford, Anne (2003), ‘Cinema and Brooks, Jodi (1998), ‘Rituals of the Filmic Embodied Affect’, Senses of Cinema, issue Body’, Writings on Dance, no. 17, pp. 15-20. no. 25, available at: http://www.sense- sofcinema.com/contents/03/25/embod- Crowther, Paul (1982), ‘Merleau-Ponty: ied_affect.html. Accessed 17 April 2008. Perception into Art’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 138-149.

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Rutherford, Anne (2002), ‘Precari- film in particular, the authors are inter- ous Boundaries: Affect, Mise-en-Scène, ested in the relation between those who and the Senses’, in: Richard Candida look and those who are looked at. They Smith (ed.), Art and the Performance of call the first part of the relevant chap- Memory: Sounds and Gestures of Recollec- ter ‘There Is Less than Meets the Eye’. tion, New York: Routledge, pp. 63-84. 3 Relating to Wolfenstein and Leites, Holland Sobchack, Vivian (2004a), ‘Thinking through discusses the ‘certain feeling people have, Jim Carrey’, in: Cynthia Baron, Diane Carson that looking at a film is somehow passive’. and Frank P. Tomasulo (eds.), More than a He examines ‘puzzling movies’ like Hiro- Method. Trends and Traditions in Contempo- shima, Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959) and rary Film Performance, Detroit, MI: Wayne La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1959): ‘these State University Press, pp. 275-294. films take us back to the child’s frame of mind’ (Holland 1963: 24). This regression to Sobchack, Vivian (2004b), ‘What My Fin- the ‘safe but powerless child’ represents the gers Knew: The Cinesthetic Subject, or reason for ‘people feeling that watching a Vision in the Flesh’, in: Vivian Sobchack, film is somehow passive’ (Holland 1963: 27). Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA: 4 Stern and Kouvaros (1999: 22-26) as well University of California Press, pp. 53-84. as Sobchack, in her essay on Carrey (2004a: 277), relate to Jodi Brooks who focuses on Sobchack, Vivian (1992), The Address of the the body and raises the attention given to Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience, the body by the camera, representing ‘both Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. a re-sensitization of the spectator’s body Stern, Lesley and George Kouvaros (1999), and a refiguring of the imaged body’: Jodi ‘Introduction: Descriptive Acts’, in: Les- Brooks (1998), Writings on Dance, no. 17, p. 17. ley Stern and George Kouvaros (eds.), 5 Quotation borrowed from and trans- Falling for You: Essays on Cinema and Per- lated by Mattias Frey, ‘Michael Haneke formance, Sydney: Power, pp. 1-36. – A Cinema of Disturbance: The Films Wojcik, Pamela Robertson (2004), ‘Gen- of Michel Haneke in Context’, Senses eral Introduction’, in: Pamela Robertson of Cinema, online: http://www.sense- Wojcik (ed.), Movie Acting: The Film Reader, sofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/ New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 1-13. haneke.html. Accessed 17 April 2008. Wolfenstein, Martha and Nathan Leites (1950), Movies: A Psychologi- cal Study, Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.

Endnotes 1. The statements of Haneke, Binoche, Auteuil and Bénichou can be found in a clip in the archive of the Cannes festi- val’s homepage. Accessed 01 September 2007. A shortened version of the confer- ence is still in the festival's online archive: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/media- Player/8493.html. Accessed 17 April 2008.

2. Martha Wolfenstein and Nathan Leites, Picture credits: Le Studio Canal+/ pp. 246-262. By comparing comedy with Sony Pictures, 2005 melodrama, and American with French

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